1876, believed that America would sometime come to the
Philippines, and wished to prepare his countrymen for the changed
conditions that would then have to be met. Many little incidents
in his later life confirm this view: his eagerness to buy expensive
books on the United States, such as his early purchase in Barcelona
of two different "Lives of the Presidents of the United States"; his
study of the country in his travel across it from San Francisco to
New York; the reference in "The Philippines in a Hundred Years"; and
the studies of the English Revolution and other Anglo-Saxon influences
which culminated in the foundation of the United States of America.

Besides the interest he took in clay modeling, to which reference
has already been made, Rizal was expert in carving. When first
in the Ateneo he had carved an image of the Virgin of such grace
and beauty that one of the Fathers asked him to try an image of the
Sacred Heart. Rizal complied, and produced the carving that played so
important a part in his future life. The Jesuit Father had intended to
take the image with him to Spain, but in some way it was left behind
and the schoolboys put it up on the door of their dormitory. There it
remained for nearly twenty years, constantly reminding the many lads
who passed in and out of the one who teachers and pupils alike agreed
was the greatest of all their number, for Rizal during these years was
the schoolboy hero of the Ateneo, and from the Ateneo came the men who
were most largely concerned in making the New Philippines. The image
itself is of batikulin, an easily carved wood, and shows considerable
skill when one remembers that an ordinary pocketknife was the simple
instrument used in its manufacture. It was recalled to Rizal's memory
when he visited the Ateneo upon his first return from Spain and was
forbidden the house by the Jesuits because of his alleged apostasy,
and again in the chapel of Fort Santiago, where it played an important
part in what was called his conversion.

The proficiency he attained in the art of clay modeling is evidenced by
many of the examples illustrated in this volume. They not only indicate
an astonishing versatility, but they reveal his very characteristic
method of working--a characteristic based on his constant desire
to adapt the best things he found abroad to the conditions of his
own country. The same characteristic appears also in most of his
literary work, and in it there is no